With Me, Into The Dark
by Lamia of the Dark
Summary: Drabble Collection. Marauder Era, slightly AU (major canon events remain unchanged). Bellatrix is assigned to train the new Death Eater recruits. (Focuses mostly on OCs, you have been warned.) WARNINGS: Violent/disturbing imagery in some chapters (gore), swearing, sexual references.
1. When The Reaper Comes

**DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.**

**A/N: The drabbles/oneshots in this collection will not be in chronological order, but are all part of the same storyline. The OCs starring in this tale are two young female Death Eaters: Lilith Goyle (birth year 1951, aunt to Gregory) and Azalais Carrow (birth year 1955, cousin to Alecto and Amycus).**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Lilith startles into wakefulness. Pain pulls at her side, but her gaze skips over the familiar sight of Azalais (beside her, healing her wounds - as usual after a mission) to land on the room's unexpected occupant.

Bellatrix leans against the wall opposite the bed, her arms crossed over her chest and a faintly worried expression gracing her features.

As her memories of tonight's battle slowly filter back to her, Lilith narrows her eyes and asks, "Why did you intervene?"

"You almost got yourself killed!" Bellatrix snaps. Any worry she might have felt evaporates at the ingrate's question.

"But I would have taken Moody with me," Lilith says, allowing her eyes to drift closed once more as she blissfully recalls the way her curse-infused blade parted the Auror's flesh. "Which would have been a significant loss for their side," she finishes belatedly.

"One worth losing _your_ life over?" Bellatrix asks.

"Perhaps not," Lilith concedes, wondering idly how one would calculate the value of her services to the Noble Cause versus Moody's worth to the Ministry. "But when the Reaper comes for me, I will go gladly into his arms."

~end of scene~

**Reviews are always appreciated.**


	2. Strung Upon A Chain

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

"I like your pendant."

Lilith is an awkward conversationalist who is utterly inept at engaging in small talk, so Bellatrix is certain that the compliment is genuine. The pendant in question is a bronze bird skull with a thin chain threaded through its eye sockets.

Bellatrix gives a perfunctory response of, "Thanks, I'm glad you like it."

Lilith continues to stare at the skull, but fails to voice what is on her mind.

The silence drags on for several moments until Bellatrix, unsettled, explains: "It's a souvenir from my first successful Killing Curse."

"Ah, so it _is_ real then...?"

"Yes."

Curiosity assuaged, Lilith turns her attention back to the book of dark magic she has been tasked with studying. Assuming the conversation is now over with, Bellatrix returns to her own research as well.

Silence reigns for a long while - broken only by the occasional turning of a page - until Lilith says, out of nowhere, "Mine was a rabbit."

~end~


	3. A Puzzle Piece For Your Thoughts

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Lilith is hopeless with the Imperius Curse. Besides her catalpa-and-unicorn wand not being suited to casting Unforgivables, she lacks the proper focus to hold the victim under her thrall for an extended period of time.

Azalais is a different story altogether. While she has not yet managed to cast a successful Killing Curse, and her Cruciatus Curse is more of a tickle than debilitating pain, the strength of her Imperius Curse alone convinces Bellatrix that this girl might be well-suited to learning the magics of the mind.

Bellatrix does not consult the Dark Lord before beginning to teach Azalais the rudiments of Occlumency. Lilith insists on receiving the same instruction as her companion, but she quickly proves too scatterbrained to have any affinity for the art.

And while Azalais feels sorry for her companion for being denied the chance to add a new skill to her arsenal, she is secretly thrilled to finally be spending time alone with their idol. As a healer, Azalais is often sent on different missions than the fighters (when she is allowed to go on missions at all, as her skills are too valuable to be unnecessarily risked). Not that she doesn't like Lilith - they are childhood friends, after all - but sometimes Azalais feels _overshadowed_ during their training sessions, because it so often seems that Lilith requires more of their instructor's attention in order to learn.

~end of scene~


	4. A Lasting First Impression

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

The first time Bellatrix meets Lilith Goyle is in Borgin and Burke's.

Lilith has her hand fisted in the proprietor's collar and is shouting, "That piece of _shit_ you sold me didn't do what you said it does!"

The shopkeeper makes a strangled sound.

"Not that it wasn't funny when it turned my brother into a toad, and I did manage to turn him back eventually, but I expect you refund the defective merchandise in full. And if you ever try to cheat me again, well... let's just say I could use some practice with my wandless Cruciatus Curse."

The man is starting to go blue around the lips when Lilith finally releases her hold. He collapses to the floor, coughing. She turns to leave-

-and stops in her tracks when she spots Bellatrix standing in the shop's doorway.

"Cursing in public isn't ladylike," Bellatrix says, but her tone is one of cool amusement rather than true admonition.

"I didn't realize we had an audience, _my lady_," Lilith returns.

The sarcasm is not lost on Bellatrix but she pretends to ignore it as she moves out of the doorway so that the other witch can exit.

Wondering if what the woman said about casting a wandless Cruciatus Curse is true, Bellatrix turns to the shopkeeper - who is still on the floor, but has stopped coughing - and asks, "Who was that?"

~end of scene~


	5. Spoils Of War

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Bellatrix flinches as the healer plucks another shard of bone from her shoulder.

"Wouldn't it be faster to remove them with a summoning charm?" she snaps.

"Faster, yes," Azalais responds, remaining calm despite her patient's rudeness. "However, there is no telling how much more damage they would do on their way out, and some of these are in quite deep."

"And that's why you shouldn't use a blasting curse at close range," Rodolphus chimes in from the sidelines. He was also caught in the aftermath of his wife's ill-timed curse, and is waiting his turn to have the bone shrapnel removed and his wounds healed.

"Shut up, Rodolphus! If you weren't so useless in battle, I wouldn't have had to resort to something like that."

"Are you saying it's _my_ fault we ended up in such a desperate position when _you're_ the one who-"

Azalais tunes out the couples' argument and absentmindedly hums a lullaby as she continues to work. Once all of the scraps of bone have been removed, she uses a pair of complex charms to instantaneously seal the lacerations that litter Bellatrix's skin.

She then collects the bloodied shards of bone into a small glass jar, which she presents to Bellatrix as "the spoils of war". Bellatrix gives the healer an odd look, but takes the jar.

~end of scene~


	6. Useless When It Counts

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

"Do you have a sickle?" Bellatrix whispers.

She waits for a response from her companion, but none comes. She doesn't know whether she spoke too quietly for the other witch to hear, or if the idiot was just zoning out.

"_Lilith_," she hisses, digging her elbow into the other witch's ribs to make certain she has her attention. "Do you have a sickle?"

"Huh? Oh, sure..." Lilith replies distractedly.

Bellatrix suppresses a sigh. _What a bad time for the idiot to get lost in her own mind. Why did I agree to let myself get stuck with training her, again? Ugh_.

Lilith fishes in her cloak for a moment before handing Bellatrix a silver coin.

Bella stares at the object resting in her palm for a long moment before saying, "No, the _other_ kind of sickle."

She receives a blank stare in return.

"What, you don't have one? _You?_" Bellatrix asks in disbelief.

"Well, of course I _have_ one," Lilith says. "But I don't carry it around with me. It's more for decorative purposes than anything."

"Damn your obsession not _ever_ being useful!"

Their objective compromised, they fall back in order to regroup.

It isn't until later, when she is in her atelier with her experiments, that Lilith realizes Bellatrix never gave her money back.

~end of scene~


	7. Ivy Vines

**A/N: And now for something a bit different...**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Nine-year-old Lilith had taken a liking to knives, and spent the last half hour in the backyard cutting a pattern of ivy vines into her arms.

She only stopped because a Thestral colt landed beside her and began lapping up the spilled blood. Once there was none left on the grass, the creature began to lick the little witch's bloodied wrist.

By the time her father thought to look for her, the Thestral had finished its meal, and the child's wounds - with a bit of prodding from her magic, which had more of a sense of self-preservation than her conscious mind did - had begun to scab over.

When Caius Goyle tried to shoo the creature away, his daughter threw her arms around it and cried, "But Daddy, I love him!"

Still, he would rather not have such a creature here. And but for the fact that this was the most emotion his daughter had shown toward another living being since her mother's death, he would have rushed the child inside and gotten rid of the creepy death-pegasus once and for all.

As it were, his household gained an unconventional pet.

Caius never saw the knife lying in the grass, and would not find out about his daughter's wounds until much later... when it would be too late to prevent them from becoming scars.

* * *

Twenty-four-year-old Lilith knelt before the Dark Lord and turned out her left arm to receive the Mark.

Voldemort frowned at the pattern of scars criss-crossing her proffered wrist.

"Give me your other arm," he commanded. He had never branded any of his followers on the right wrist before, but he didn't care for the aesthetic of having his Mark surrounded by a frenetic tangle of white ivy vines.

The woman did not move to follow his order, however.

"It looks the same, my lord," she said.

Scowling, still unwilling to set his Mark to nest among those unsightly scars, he asked, "Who carved the vines?"

"I did, my lord," she answered.

It was the truth. She had no reason to lie - or, at least, she did not think to lie because she had not understood why he had asked.

"_Why?_"

"It seemed like the thing to do at the time," she replied with a shrug, not knowing how else to explain it.

She made no attempt to shield her mind, and he caught a flash of the memory as it bubbled up.

Lilith departed from that meeting un-Marked.

~end of scene~


	8. Lilith and The Reaper

**A/N: Yes, we will eventually get back to Azalais, but Lilith's backstory was demanding to be written.**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Lilith Goyle has been fascinated with death for as long as she could remember.

Lilith was five years old when she first encountered the Grim Reaper. He came to take her mama away.

"I want to go, too," she said, but the Reaper shook his head.

"Why not?"

"It isn't your time yet, child," the Reaper said. He was not surprised that the child could see him. Many that young still had eyes that could see into the spirit realm. Children that age also generally didn't understand why they couldn't follow their loved ones to the world beyond.

"But I want to go," the little girl persisted.

"You will know when it is your time," the Reaper said.

"How will I know?"

"Because when your time comes, you will not want to go."

* * *

The Reaper was surprised at the child's continued fascination with death in general, and with _him_ in particular. He knew she still had her spirit eyes, for he often caught her looking at him when he came to collect the tiny souls of her victims.

The pet Thestral he understood, for even the Grim Reaper needs a loyal steed, and his own was one of that species. The child's love of dark magic was also relatable, as were her cravings for both approval and violence.

He did not understand the scars, the intentional scraping away of skin, the significance she places in the image of the ivy vines...

* * *

The child lost her spirit eyes with the advent of her first monthly bleeding.

She took up the Tarot deck in order to try to find her old friend, The Reaper, once more.

When that proved unsuccessful, she moved on to human victims. Yet still she could not catch a glimpse into the spirit realm when the Reaper came to collect the souls of her conquests.

* * *

She has said it so many times and to so many people that it had practically become her catch-phrase.

"When the Reaper comes for me, I will go gladly into his arms."

She was reckless in battle, yes, but not suicidal. Never that. The Reaper had warned her already that when the time for her death came, she would not be ready to leave the mortal world. Although whether that was a prediction or a generalization, she didn't know. What she did know was that suicide would be a last-minute regret, and while she often longed to see the Reaper again, she knew she would meet him again when the time was right...

* * *

Many years passed before her eyes regained the ability to see the Reaper, and when he came for her, he found that what he'd told her those many years ago was technically true, although there was not enough left of her mind to be able to desire anything one way or the other.

~end of scene~

*Lilith's death scene can be found in the drabble "In Memoriam" which was actually the inspiration behind this collection. (It is posted separately.)


	9. Skills Not Learned

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Lilith's back was bared, bleeding.

Rodolphus nudged Bellatrix and said, "Do something."

"I'm not a healer," Bellatrix snapped. "I don't know what to do!"

A tense silence followed, broken only by the sound of Lilith coughing. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

"You should really teach her how to fight defensively so she doesn't get injured all the time."

"You think I haven't _tried_? She's good at casting defensive spells; she just has shit judgment in battle."

~end of scene~


	10. To Fight Death Himself, We Heal

**WARNING! This is a "healing" chapter so there is some gore.**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

"Can anyone who isn't injured assist me, please?" Azalais requested.

The room was packed with injured witches and wizards, as almost the full Inner Circle had been caught in a surprise raid by the Ministry during the newest recruits' marking ceremony. Those who'd stayed behind to fight the Aurors, providing cover for their fleeing companions, had fared much worse than those caught in the initial attack.

No one came forward. Everyone in the room other than the healer was either injured badly or helping hold together the bits of someone who was, and those who were holding their friends' guts in or pinching an artery to stop a family member from bleeding out, did not want to stop what they were doing in order to help whoever was first in the healer's line - especially if it meant that their own loved one would end up dying in the meantime. Many of them did not realize that Azalais's first patient was the Dark Lord himself. Had Bellatrix been conscious, she would have berated her fellow Death Eaters for their hesitance in volunteering to aid their master. However, her own injuries were too great, and she had passed out from the pain shortly after arriving at the secured location.

When it seemed that no help was immediately forthcoming, Azalais calmly kept about her task. Voldemort's injuries were minor, especially as compared to the damage some of the others had taken... but as he was the Dark Lord, his well-being was the first priority.

"There, you're done," Azalais said and, not sparing him another glance, began to pick her way across the body-strewn floor toward her next patient - the one who seemed to be in the most danger of imminently expiring. The sound of footsteps behind her made her pause and she looked back over shoulder to find that the Dark Lord was following her.

Not bothering to wait for a verbal expression of the question he could see in the healer's eyes, Voldemort said, "You require assistance, do you not? Should I allow some of my best soldiers to die simply because you could not attend to them all in time?"

Although he had baldly stated that his intentions were entirely selfish in a materialistic way, Azalais took it to mean that there were people in this room whose deaths would take an emotional toll on their supposedly-loveless master.

"Thank you, my lord," the healer replied. She flashed him a brief, tense smile before continuing to make her way toward the corner where Severus Snape was making a valiant effort to keep Lucius Malfoy's internal organs from spilling out of his body onto the floor. She heard the Dark Lord's steps falter behind her as they passed the Lestranges' group (which also contained the latest recruits - Regulus Black and Barty Crouch Junior). Without stopping or turning to look at him, she said, "Those closest to death must be tended to first if you wish them all to survive, my lord. We'll leave _that_ group for last."

~end of scene~


	11. Unconventional Magic

**WARNINGS: This chapter is the first in the collection to feature _sexual_ _references. _More will probably be sprinkled throughout future chapters.  
**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

"What are you two doing?" Bellatrix asked, frowning at the sight of a silver tiger fighting a silver great white shark in the middle of the combat-training room.

"Patronus wrestling," Azalais replied.

"_Why?_" Bellatrix asked, her confusion obvious.

The shark's form wavered, turning misty around the edges, and Azalais snapped, "Concentrate, Lili!"

Even as she said it, the tiger Patronus bashed the shark across the face with a powerful swipe of its paw and the shark dissolved completely.

"Should I cast another one?" Lilith put forth uncertainly, unnerved by the fact that they now had an audience.

"No," Azalais replied. "I have patients to tend to." She put away her wand and the silver tiger faded out of existence. On her way out of the room she paused, tossing back over her shoulder - as if it were an afterthought - an answer to Bellatrix's earlier question: "We are working on Lilith's ability to focus."

Once the healer had departed, Bellatrix turned to Lilith and said, "That helps you focus?"

Lilith shrugged. "Azzie says it will help me learn to keep my focus, and I trust her judgment. Besides, it's fun."

"Fun," Bellatrix repeated flatly, her expression clearly conveying her skepticism as to the veracity of that statement.

"Would you like to try it?"

"Even if I did want to - _which I don't_ \- I've never been able to cast a Patronus Charm," Bellatrix answered.

"Oh, you haven't? But it's easy!" Lilith exclaimed.

"It's not _easy_. It's actually one of the most difficult defensive spells in existence, and most witches and wizards never manage to cast a corporeal Patronus," Bellatrix snarled, letting her temper get the better of her. There were few things at which Lilith could say she was superior to Bellatrix, and the casting of defensive spells was one of those rare few. (Not that Lilith would actually dare to _say_ such a thing.)

"Yes, it is," Lilith argued. "It's really simple to cast."

"Were you even listening to me?" Bellatrix shouted, somehow resisting the urge to use the Cruciatus Curse to enforce her point. "Most people aren't able to master that spell! I've never been able to cast it; I _apparently_ don't have a memory happy enough for that."

"It doesn't have to be a memory," Lilith replied. She was so used to her mentor's frustration being taken out on her by now that she remained unfazed in the face of Bellatrix's anger.

"What?"

"I said it doesn't have to be a memory," Lilith repeated. "The catalyst for casting the spell is a single sharp, clean burst of joy that must be untainted by negative feelings. It can be a memory, or a happy thought, or..." She trailed off.

"Or _what_?" Bellatrix demanded.

"Well..." Lilith hedged.

Bellatrix didn't understand why the other witch was reluctant to share the secret when she was the one who had brought up the subject.

"Well _what_?"

"It can... be... uh..." Color rose in Lilith's cheeks as she haltingly attempted to explain.

"It can be _what_? Spit it out already!"

"Physical," Lilith murmured, her voice dropping so low that the other woman almost missed what she said.

A burst of joy that could be physical...?

"You mean _an_ _orgasm_? Don't tell me you learned to cast that spell while masturbating?"

"Well, no... It's a NEWT-level spell, so my tutor didn't allow me to practice it before I was sixteen. I already knew the feeling by then, of course, and the memory of it was enough."

Unfortunately for Bellatrix, her memory of that particular type of event was not strong enough to allow her to cast the Patronus Charm - at least, not without extra effort... so she took to practicing the spell in private, in the hope that she would eventually be proficient enough to cast it in public without embarrassing herself... and then she would have her grizzly bear Patronus beat up Lilith's great white shark and that would be that.

~end of scene~


	12. Dragon With A Top Hat On

**A/N: And now for something a bit different...  
**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

"What is _that_?" thirteen-year-old Draco Malfoy asked, pointing to a particular object that was tucked away on a high shelf in his friend's bedroom.

"It's a stuffed dragon with a top hat on," replied Gregory Goyle.

"Yes, I can see that. What I want to know is _why do you have it?_"

"His name is Mr. Dragon and I've had him since I was baby," Greg replied defensively. "My aunt Lilith made the hat."

Draco frowned over the revelation of this new bit of information.

"I didn't know you had an aunt," he said.

"Yeah, well, she's rotting in the same place as _your_ aunt, so-"

"You shut up about my aunt!" Draco snapped, cutting Greg off. "Don't mention her ever again."

One of the rules of the Malfoy family was _We Do Not Talk About Bellatrix, Especially To Anyone Outside This Family_. And Draco was not about to break it.

As the tense, angry silence stretched out between the two friends, Draco could not help but wonder if the fact that Lilith was in Azkaban meant that she had also been a Death Eater, but he could not quite bring himself to voice the question. And besides, he figured Greg was probably too stupid to know the answer to that, anyway.

~end of scene~


	13. Minutiae

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

When Severus Snape showed up on the doorstep at half past midnight, Gilbert Goyle was (to say the least) not pleased.

"It's the middle of the night, Snape. This had better be important," he snarled.

Severus fought down his urge to just hex the brute, and replied as calmly as he could, "I need to speak with your sister."

Goyle gave him an odd look and seemed about ready to tell him off, when Lilith appeared at her brother's shoulder and said, "Don't be an ass, Gil. He probably needs to borrow some potion ingredients."

It was a plausible assumption, as Severus was known for his skill in potion-making, and had in fact been partially (if inadvertently) responsible for helping Lilith invent a ridiculously dangerous new potion which she would likely end up in prison over the use of, if she had indeed created it with the intention of actually using it rather than out of pure empirical curiosity.

Still, it took extra prodding from his sister to get the dumb lump to move out of the doorway enough to allow Severus through.

"For Merlin's sake, you bloody neanderthal, if we were having a tryst we'd have been more fucking careful about setting it up. Let the boy in, already." As Goyle stepped aside to let their guest in, his sister continued to berate him. "And don't slam the door, because if you wake up the baby, your pet harpy - excuse me, I mean your _lovely_ _wife_ \- will surely blame me and then I'll never fucking hear the end of it."

_Boy_, Severus thought sourly to himself as he stepped over the threshold. _She_ _thinks_ _of_ _me as a mere_ **_boy_**. True, she was nearly ten years older than him, but he had been of age for several years now, and had risen farther in the Death Eater ranks than Lilith had even though she had two years more experience than him in that arena. And still she thought of him as a child?

Out loud, he said, "For a lady of good breeding, you certainly swear a lot."

Lilith shrugged.

"I am an adult, and I'll speak how I want in my own home," she said. "Follow me down to my atelier and we'll get the ingredients you needed."

He had forgotten that she was particularly difficult to offend, because she had been raised in near-isolation and had never learned to properly understand social cues. He followed her through a maze of corridors to a heavily-warded room in the basement which served as her workshop.

Once they had passed through the first layer of wards, she turned to him and asked, "What did you really come here for?"

"You have your full Diviner's credentials, correct?" Severus inquired.

"Ah... yes. You want a reading?"

"If you don't mind."

"And it couldn't have waited until morning?" Lilith asked, frowning.

Severus explained about the prophecy he'd overhead, and how there were two children to which it could refer. "So I was wondering if you could divine which of the two children it means," he concluded.

"I don't deal in minutiae."

"...what?"

"I _said_ I don't deal in minutiae," Lilith snapped, not bothering to hide her irritation. "The future is not set in stone, Snape. There are many possible paths, and if you wish a prophecy to remain unfulfilled, then what you must do is _not_ _tell_ _anyone what you've heard,_ so that they have no choice but to continue acting without foreknowledge of that particular possible future."

But it was too late for that; he had already informed the Dark Lord of it.

~end of scene~

**A/N: The bit about Lilith having an interest in Divination hasn't really been mentioned anywhere except in "Temperance" which was published outside this collection (and is an AU to it, as her death plays out differently in that story than it does here), but Lilith earned her NEWT in Divination and is partial to the Tarot deck.**


	14. And Why Am I In This Handbasket?

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

"Papa, where are we going?" seven-year-old Azalais asks as she latches onto her father's hand.

"We're going to see an old friend of mine," Ambrose Carrow answers, "and I'm going to teach his little girl some magic."

Ambrose normally wouldn't have accepted the tutoring position, but he is running low on funds and Caius promised that he would be well paid for his efforts. Raising a child is expensive, and wealth is something the Carrow family has never had in abundance. (Unfortunately, good looks are also something that don't run in the Carrow family, yet somehow Azalais has turned out to be quite a pretty little thing.)

Ambrose expects his daughter to ask him if she can learn magic too, and is preparing to explain to her that she isn't old enough for a wand yet, but the question she does ask turns out to be something else entirely.

"A girl? Is she going to be my friend?"

"We'll see, dear. We'll see."

~end of scene~


	15. This Was Supposed To Be An Easy Mission

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Although Lilith was still deficient in several skill areas, her training period had been deemed complete and she had been branded with the Dark Mark. (Although hers was placed further up the arm than most Death Eaters' Marks were, due to the ivy-vine scars carved around her wrist.) As Bellatrix was tasked with training the latest recruits, the duty of being Lilith's keeper no longer fell to her, and now Lilith was undertaking her first mission without her erstwhile mentor.

Her companions for this endeavor were Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy, and while they were reasonably certain that no combat would be involved as it was primarily an information-gathering expedition, each man was glad to have the other along so that he alone would not bear the responsibility of dealing with any of the mistakes that the scatterbrained witch was likely to make.

After Snape successfully extracted the sought-after information from their target using Legilimency ("Cheater," Lilith muttered sourly, earning herself a sharp jab in the ribs and a hissed "Quiet in the peanut gallery" from Malfoy), the three of them decided to follow the lead rather than reporting back with the information - or, more accurately, Lucius managed to convince the other two that checking the veracity of what they'd learned would be better than reporting the information back to the Dark Lord only to have it turn out false.

And so the three of them journeyed to the ruins of an old house at the edge of a swamp, where the magical artifact their master sought was supposedly hidden. After a thorough search of the property, they found an old chest which looked exactly the type to contain treasure... but, as luck would have it, all that was hidden inside the ancient container was a family of boggarts.

Severus's worst fears were mostly intangible things, so he was not entirely surprised when one of the boggarts chose to become the boogeyman of his childhood - his father. He quickly dispatched the creature and turned to see if his companions required assistance.

Lucius's boggart had, embarrassingly enough, turned into a cackling Bellatrix. He seemed to be handling it well enough on his own, so Snape turned his attention to Lilith. The witch was backing away slowly from the remaining boggarts - three of them, which had ganged up on her, apparently having singled her out as the easiest target - with a horrified expression on her face.

As Severus stepped between Lilith and creatures, he wondered what in the hell had happened in her past to make her terrified of phoenixes.

~end of scene~


	16. Biscuit

**A/N: The person who is to blame for this chapter knows exactly who they are and which conversation is responsible for this being written.**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

For some reason (of which none of the purebloods in the group were sure what it was), Greyback had been sent to accompany them on this particular mission. Lucius and Rabastan were particularly wary of the werewolf and stayed as far away from him as they could, but the female members of their group shared no such compunctions, it seemed, as Alecto and Lilith engaged him in a protracted conversation about the eating of human flesh while the group waited for their targets to appear. At first, Lucius was afraid he was going to have to rescue the ladies from the cantankerous predator, but once Greyback realized they were genuinely interested in the subject rather than attempting to annoy him, he proved himself perfectly able to hold a civilized conversation. (Not that the subject matter qualified as civilized, of course.)

All talk ended abruptly when the targets showed up at the place where the Death Eaters were waiting, and their mission began in earnest. Once it was over, and nothing was left of their targets but a few blood-streaked sets of empty robes and scattered shoes, it was clear to them all why Greyback had been sent along.

As they filed out of the little cabin and headed back through the woods toward where they'd left their (unauthorized) Portkey, Alecto - apparently disturbed by what she'd witnessed in there - stuck close to Rabastan.

"What happened to hanging around your new best friend?" Rab whispered to her, the sarcasm in his tone carrying clearly despite the lack of volume.

Glancing back over her shoulder to make sure the werewolf hadn't overheard, Alecto breathed, "Greyback's crazy."

Rabastan chanced a quick peek behind him and saw that Lilith was walking beside Greyback, and seemed to be just as at ease speaking with him now as she had been before the mission.

"Lilith's crazy too," he murmured.

Alecto snorted in a most unladylike fashion and replied, "You didn't know her when we were kids. She was creepy as fuck even back then."

Behind them, completely ignorant of their conversation, Lilith was offering Greyback a biscuit. When the werewolf just stared at her with a nonplussed expression, she reached up to pat him on the head and said, "Because you were a good puppy."

Greyback's expression twisted into a scowl.

"Don't call me a puppy!"

"But you are a good puppy," Lilith protested, pouting in an exaggeratedly childlike manner. "I know, I'll call you Fluffy!"

He growled low in his throat as a warning, but she just laughed and ruffled his hair, saying, "Nice Fluffy. Goooood Fluffy."

_She's fucking with me_, the werewolf realized suddenly. How long had it been since anyone had let their guard down enough around him to be comfortable teasing him? Too long...

He batted her hand away, not hard enough to hurt but with enough force that she would know that any further attempts to pet his head would not be wise.

"Want the biscuit, Fluffy?" she asked, holding it out, still apparently intent on teasing him.

"No, I don't want the damn biscuit," he snarled. "But..." he said speculatively, letting his gaze rake over her body, "there's _something_ I'd like to eat."

Lilith, completely missing both the look and the subtext of his comment, held her arm out to him and asked sarcastically, "Want a bite?"

~end of scene~


	17. Blood of the Covenant

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Barty Jr has very minor injuries from his latest mission, which would heal on their own with no trouble, but likes having an excuse to visit the pretty healer...

When he arrives at the infirmary, however, he finds that the object of his affection is in no mood to deal with him as she is quite obviously exhausted after cleaning up the damage done to the rest of the group who had returned earlier that evening.

"You've got... blood..." he says, awkwardly gesturing toward his own neck to indicate the location.

"I know," Azalais replies tiredly, making no move to do anything about it. Barty continues to stare at the healer and she adds belatedly, "It's Lilith's."

Barty nods and says, "Yeah. Sorry about that."

Suppressing the urge to sigh, Azalais closes her eyes and brings one hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She can feel a stress-headache coming on.

"It's not your fault that she goes into battle with no regard for her own life," she says.

The healer lets her hand drop to her side and opens her eyes to find the young wizard regarding her oddly.

"I don't think it's entirely how you seem to think it is," he says slowly, stepping closer to the witch as he speaks. "She wasn't just... fighting recklessly for no reason. Lilith was shielding the other members of the team when she was injured today."

"Including you," Azalais says, allowing her eyes to fall shut again.

"Including me," Barty confirms.

If she is startled by his sudden closeness, she does not show it.

"I joined the Death Eaters to look after her, you know," she whispers.

"But who's looking after you?" he whispers back, and she can feel his breath hot on her skin.

She does not protest as he begins to lap the blood from her flesh.

~end of scene~


	18. Ponies On The Couch

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

The Thestral colt, who was now named Prince Asphodel, scrambled up onto the couch to be close to his witch.

"Lili, no ponies on the couch!" her younger brother cried out in a scandalized tone.

Lilith leveled a glare at the four-year-old and replied, her voice full of ice, "Yes, ponies on the couch."

"I'm telling dad!"

But before Gilbert had even made it to the door of the living room in order to make good on his threat of tattling, Lilith was already calling out for their father.

"DADDY!"

As if summoned by magic, Caius appeared in the doorway.

"What's wrong, Lilith?" her father asked, sounding weary.

"Gil is being mean to my pony!" Lilith whined, pouting. The "pony" in question snorted and nuzzled the little witch's cheek.

Caius frowned at the sight of the Thestral on the couch, but said nothing about it.

"Gil, why don't you come in my study with me and leave your sister's pet alone... I'll show you how to write with a quill. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Gilbert scowled. To a four-year-old, that didn't sound like fun at all. It sounded like a big old pile of _not-fun._

"Or I could let Prince Asphodel eat you instead," Lilith suggested, addressing her brother.

Gilbert didn't think ponies ate people, but considering the thing belonged to his creepy older sister, he wasn't sure that this one wouldn't. With one last nervous glance at Lilith and her familiar, the boy hurried to join his father.

~end of scene~


	19. And Then The Whole World Was Fire

**A/N: This chapter picks up directly where chapter 15 left off (although it's not necessary to read that one to understand what's going on here).**

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

As Severus faced off against the remaining boggarts, he felt Lilith's hands clutching at the back of his robes. She trembled with fear even now, when the creatures had already transformed from _her_ worst nightmare into his, and were quickly and skillfully vanquished.

Lucius, having taken nearly as long to banish a single monster as it had taken Severus to defeat the other four, now crossed the room to join his Death Eater companions. He arrived next to them just as Lilith collapsed against Severus, mumbling something Lucius couldn't quite catch.

Severus knelt awkwardly - careful to keep the unconscious witch from sliding off his back onto the ground as he did so - until he was in a position where he could contort his torso in a way that allowed him to get a proper hold of Lilith and transfer her from where she was plastered against his back into a position where one wrong move would _not_ send her crashing to the rotten floorboards. (And of course, Malfoy offered no assistance during the entire ordeal, despite the fact that he was standing right there and easily could have helped - not that the thought of doing so was likely to have even occurred to him.)

Considering how reckless Lilith was in battle, fainting in fear like some distressed damsel from a cheap romance novel was not something Severus would have ever expected of her. It seemed her phobia of phoenixes was more severe than it had first appeared.

"What did she say?" Lucius asked, his curiosity getting the better of him despite the seriousness of the situation.

Severus looked up at the older man, his expression caught somewhere between bewilderment and worry, and replied, "She said, '_the whole world was fire_'."

* * *

"What happened?" Azalais asked as Severus carefully settled Lilith's limp form onto one of the infirmary beds.

"She fainted."

"That doesn't sound like her," Azalais replied, frowning. "Unless the three of you were drinking?"

"No. We ran across a nest of boggarts."

The healer's frown deepened.

"I thought it was an information gathering mission. Weren't you at a bar? How did you _just happen_ to run across a nest of boggarts?"

Snape bristled at the healer's scathing tone.

"Lucius wanted to check and make sure the information we got was authentic before we reported it to the Dark Lord," he explained. "We were searching the ruins when we were attacked by a family of boggarts." He paused, debating whether he really wanted to attempt to discuss this with her or not. He knew the two women were childhood friends, but Azalais was overprotective of Lilith and might react badly to someone digging for personal information if he did not go about it carefully. "The ones that attacked her turned into phoenixes."

"That's odd."

"How so?"

"Her mother's familiar was a phoenix. When Adelaide died, the phoenix stayed behind to watch over the children."

"And Lilith wasn't afraid of it?"

"Not a bit! The phoenix would even sit on Lilith's shoulder sometimes and Lilith would pet it..." Azalais trailed off and looked at Severus thoughtfully for a moment.

_This is the critical moment. She **does** know something, I'm sure of it_.

And he had one more card to play.

"There was something else," Severus said slowly. "Before she passed out she said, 'the whole world was fire'."

The healer's expression momentarily twisted into something akin to fury, but she quickly schooled her features into a blank mask.

"You should leave," she said coldly.

"Why?" Snape asked, deciding against his better judgment to push his luck.

"It's none of your concern. And you are _not_ to ask her about it." When it looked as though he was going to argue, the healer drew her wand.

Severus decided that a tactical retreat was in order.

* * *

Once Snape was gone, Azalais went to Lilith's bedside and reached down to smooth the older witch's hair back from her face. Even in her unconscious state, Lilith seemed agitated. The younger woman knew that Lilith had repressed memories having to do with a fire which had destroyed half of the Goyle mansion sometime around ten or eleven years ago, but she didn't know the specifics of what had happened that day.

The healer was not yet a master Legilimens, but she had been studying the art and was somewhat proficient. What she found in Lilith's mind would make her wish she had never learned the skill...

It came to her in flashes, not as a single coherent scene.

_Twelve-year-old Lilith, distraught over the loss of her spirit eyes, taking up the tarot deck..._

_Thirteen-year-old Lilith spending countless hours looking through ancient tomes of dark magic in her father's library, until one day she finally finds-_

_... painting a complex pattern on the floor in her woman's blood while chanting an incantation in a long-forgotten language..._

_... her mother's beloved phoenix fighting the demon - protecting both children, as the girl had contracted with the demon to exchange her brother's soul for otherworld sight, not knowing the demon would simply have taken her soul as well after she sacrificed the boy..._

_... the demon's laughter as it summoned another handful of black flames..._

_... the tiny body crumbling to ash in her arms, no hint of a spark remaining..._

_And then the demon was cleaved in two by the black blade of a scythe. A figure cloaked in black robes sat astride a rearing Thestral (much larger and more fierce-looking than young Prince Asphodel), and the girl was so happy to see him that she nearly forgot the sorrow of losing her treasured protector and the stinging pain of the Covenant of Damnation which was newly burned into her back with demon flame._

_"... and then the whole world was fire," murmured Death Himself, pressing a soft kiss to the girl's forehead. When the child woke, she would remember nothing of her contract with the demon, the only remnant of it being the rose-shaped brand between her shoulder blades and a vague memory of fire. She would also forget her childhood crush on the Reaper, as well as her quest to regain her spirit eyes. Unfortunately, she would also have to forget her mother's phoenix, because the inter-connectivity of the memories could bring everything crashing back if one string were pulled..._

~end of scene~


	20. In Vino Vanitas

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

Alastor is patrolling in Hogsmeade when he witnesses a group of suspected Death Eaters stumbling drunkenly into the street after having apparently been thrown out of the Hog's Head.

The single female in the group appears to be the most inebriated by far. She stumbles twice before they are even five steps away from the bar. After the second time, she kicks off her shoes in frustration. The high heels were not the problem, though, as is proven by her continued lack of coordination upon attempting to walk further.

"Why can't we just Apparate?" Vance Crabbe whines.

"In this condition? You'd puke your guts out, splinch yourself, end up somewhere unintended, _or all three_," Griswold Yaxley replies.

Lucius Malfoy watches with barely concealed disgust as Yaxley and Rabastan Lestrange each place a hand gingerly on one of Lilith's elbows, bracing the highly intoxicated witch between them.

"One of you-" Malfoy starts to say, but is interrupted by the bar's door banging open.

Severus Snape stands in the doorway, with a bundle of black cloth in one hand.

"You forgot your cloak, Lethe," Snape says.

"Don't call me that," Lilith snaps. "If you want to use a nickname, you can call me _Lili_ like everyone else does."

"But Lethe suits you so well," her interlocutor replies with a smirk. He gives the cloak a shake, as if its very existence illustrates his point.

When the halfblood makes no move to actually transfer the lost item into its owner's possession, Crabbe stomps over to retrieve it. He then passes the cloak over to Lestrange, who shakes out the thick velvet and drapes it over Lilith's shoulders, using a Tying Charm to secure the laces.

"If I'm Lethe, then you're _Cocytus_!" Lilith shouts at Snape's departing back as he retreats into the Hog's Head.

"Stop," Lestrange reprimands quietly. Lilith turns to him, looking as though she is about to shout at him as well, but he continues in the same calm tone, "Is this how a lady behaves?"

Lilith's anger immediately deflates and she replies sullenly, "No."

"That's good," he praises, as if speaking to a child. "Now, shall we head home?"

He offers her his arm. Lilith accepts, linking elbows with him and gripping his forearm with both of her hands. She leans rather more heavily against his side than would be considered socially acceptable... at least, in a situation where her ability to remain standing did not depend on his support. None of their drinking companions are going to complain, although her brother would most likely not stand for such a thing if he were here.

The group once more begins to make their way home. Under Lestrange's tender care, Lilith manages to remain upright and moderately ambulatory.

"One of you, get her shoes," Malfoy commands.

Looking as though he'd dearly love to tell Malfoy to shut his face hole and do it his own damn self, Crabbe nevertheless bends down and scoops up Lilith's high heels.

"If Lilith is Lethe and Snape is Cocytus... who's Styx, then?" Yaxley murmurs to Malfoy as they pass the alley in which Moody is hiding.

"Bellatrix, of course," Malfoy answers.

~end of scene~

**A/N:** If you're thinking you've seen this before, you probably read it in "Hearts of Clouded Crystal" which has been taken down. This was the only chapter of HoCC that was more consistent with this version of Lilith than with the "Temperance" version of Lilith (which is what HoCC was based on).

"Lili" is pronounced with stress on the second syllable rather than the first (basically "Lilith" with the "th" sound dropped), so it doesn't sound quite the same as "Lily"... but you can see why Snape would be reluctant to call her that.


	21. Death and an Unexpected Reunion

~ With Me, Into The Dark ~

"Lilith?" Bellatrix asks in surprise as she catches a glimpse under the Reaper's hood. The name falls from her lips before she has a chance to catch herself. It isn't even that the underworld minion _looks_ like Bella's former protege so much as that it has the same general aura. There is something about the general set of its features as well as the expression it wears that reminds her strongly of Lilith. (Should she be referring to it as 'she'? Is it even female? The billowing black robes it wears make its gender impossible to tell.)

"Yes," the creature says, its voice something dark and smoky which definitely doesn't belong to the world of the living. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you recognize me, even in this form." The creature turns and begins to walk away. "By the way, I'm called Scythe now. Come, follow."

"Where are we going?"

"To your judgement first. Where next depends on the results of that."

_Well, I suppose she would know, having been here for over a decade_.

~end of scene~

**A/N:** This chapter was written for Caesar's Palace Shipping Week (Valentine's 2016) Day 4, prompt: phantom. If anyone couldn't tell, it takes place after the Battle of Hogwarts.


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